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Has there ever been an interesting and/or fun flying mechanic in any game?

I keep asking myself that question, as my eyes glaze over while holding Shift + W in an attempt to get somewhere in Ark on a flying mount. Flying anywhere in Ark is especially egregious, as not only is there no auto-Run/Sprint, letting go of the W key will cause your mount to stop moving altogether. Flying is not particularly engaging in WoW either, but at least you can hit NumLock (or other keybind) and then Alt-Tab for a while.

Which then begs the question of why flying commonly works the way it does at all.

In WoW, it is in perhaps its most banal form: a land mount that moves on a 3rd axis. Up, down, sideways, for infinite periods of time. Back when Flightgate was occurring, I was firmly in Camp Fly, but not because flying itself was particularly fun. Back in Burning Crusade when there were actual concerns – Fel Cannons and flying enemies capable of dismounting you – but those have largely been abandoned in favor of… attunements and grinding. Not a particular improvement.

In Ark, things are a tiny bit different. The biggest difference would be the existence of a Stamina meter, requiring one to eventually land somewhere. This need for landing does slightly alter the gameplay of flying, insofar as you must make decisions to, say, attempt to cross the Swamp at low Stamina or rest up beforehand. Otherwise, flying is largely identical, with no real to worry about running into trees or being attacked by really anything (PvP aside).

Know something that I do find compelling gameplay? Gliding. A lot of people have gone on about GW2’s introduction of gliding in Heart of Thorns and how great it is, but I’ve never experience it there. In WoW though, the Goblin Glider has been my fam for most of Legion. And don’t get me started on how lethargic it feels to play any other class after experiencing the Demon Hunter for 20 minutes. Double-jump plus glide everywhere? Give that dev a raise.

Gliding has a lot going for it, mechanically. There is the gameplay necessary to get to a high enough location to glide in the first place, for example. Once you actually take the leap, your time is limited in a very real, intuitive way. Stamina bars can technically limit flight too, but only abstractly. There is something engaging about the way you might scan the ground ahead, making minor course corrections, seeking to avoid the dangers at the end of your decaying trajectory. Even if you are not actively moving left or right, your mind is still performing the prodigious, subconscious calculus of triangulation every second. Compare that to Shift + W.

The “obvious” solution is to make flying mounts handle more like gliders. But is that really a winning combination? Maybe.

I think the challenge is the threading of the needle between making flying engaging without it being onerous. Having to press Spacebar for each flap of the mount’s wings is probably not the way to go. Being able to dive bomb though? Catching updrafts? Gliding around obstacles? Having to actually pay attention when flying through forests? That is something I can get behind. One of my favorite mounts in Ark is actually the Giant Toad, as its huge jumps are infinitely entertaining in of themselves. Can you imagine a game, MMO or otherwise, that had a flying system fun enough to be its own reward, rather than merely a mechanism to get from A to B?

This past Thanksgiving break was actually the busiest I’ve had in years, so I have not had much time for anything other than commutes and carbs.

The Haul

Pretty much the only thing I’ve bought during the various sales was Battlefield 1 for about $30. It was the physical edition, because retailers collude with the game industry to keep digital sales nonexistent, so I won’t actually receive it until sometime this week.

Time will tell whether BF1 will keep my attention for as long as BF2/3/4 did. A lot of people talk about how much better it is when there aren’t 37 people with lock-on rocket launchers running around, but I liked being one of those guys with the niche loadouts to harass the pros who otherwise get 70-1 scores with the goddamn attack helicopters. So we’ll see where I fall in the BF1 department.

Perhaps more than what I bought, it’s interesting as to what I didn’t purchase. For example: Titanfall 2 for $28. One, I thought it a bit silly to buy both Titanfall 2 and BF1 at the same time. Two, I’ve kinda already learned my lesson from last time. It’s not so much the prognostication regarding the PC population as it is concerns about matchmaking in general, the fact that some game modes already struggle to pop, and the wirehead nature of the gameplay. I dunno. Perhaps the bottom line is that my breakpoint on this game is not $28. Maybe $20.

There were some particularly good deals on things like the PS4 (an Uncharted bundle for $212), but I passed for the same reason I always pass on consoles: I don’t end up playing them. I still have a backlog on the PS3, let alone getting a new console. I feel like if I get back into couch gaming, I’ll have to upgrade the TV to make it the same equivalent size to my current monitor, or bust out the projector again, but that’s way too much work. Much easier to do nothing.

WoW Projects

I officially unlocked Draenor flying.

Whew.

So, what now? Well… I dunno. I have been logging on, doing some of the more lucrative dailies, and most recently running some old raids for transmog gear. I’m pretty sure WoW is going to fall to the wayside once Battlefield 1 arrives, and then we’ll see. I mean, I can’t really level any other characters, and I want to see where this WoW Token Battle.net balance thing goes besides.

Have you ever just sort of watched yourself play games, Ouija Board-style? That is sort of where I am with WoW at the moment. I log in, and… just see what transpires. I have no express goal anymore, stuck as I am in a holding pattern for either the WoW Token –> Server Transfer change, or some other solo questing content that doesn’t require 80 quest items from heroic dungeons.

The results have been interesting. For example, I am apparently unlocking flying in Draenor.

Believe me, I don’t know either. But it’s a nice, relatively straight-forward project with discrete checkboxes and otherwise tangible progress towards a goal. The Reputation part would technically be the most annoying, but I have been checking the AH periodically for those Medallions of the Legion, and have accumulated quite a few. So, for now, I am focusing on one zone per play session, knocking it out, and then following up with 1-2 of the “Securing Draenor” areas. Depending on my mood and the arc of the stars, this should be completed in around a week or two.

The Draenor flying project occurred after I power-leveled my warlock alt through Draenor proper, and got stuck in the abject hell that is Legion on an imbalanced PvP server. The power-leveling part was actually fun setting up. With a Potion of the Rapid Mind, full heirlooms, Potion of Accelerated Learning, and Darkmoon Faire buff… each Bonus Objective in Gorgrond gave approximately half a level. If you complete them all aside from 1-2 required mobs, then complete all the quests in the area (without turning them in), you can snag the maximum amount of XP possible in Gorgrond within that 15-minute Rapid Mind window, which is basically enough to go from 93-100 in one go.

Provided, of course, you don’t get ganked along the way.

I have been somewhat lucky in the avoiding-the-gank department thus far. Almost all the pointless attempts on my life have been while on my paladin. Just yesterday, I was attacked by a 110 Balance druid in Spires of Arak at a quest hub on my 102 namesake paladin. I bubbled and hit a hearth button… which ended up being the extra hearth you get for having an Inn in Spires, so I was really just teleported 200 yards south. The druid knew this somehow, as it was 30 seconds later when I heard the guards starting to aggro. I tried to log off, but apparently the Inn doesn’t actually count as an Inn, so I had the long, 20-second log-off timer. Not sure what the base looks like from a Horde perspective, but the druid clipped through the wall, trailing 30+ guards, and was trying to take me out with Moonfire spam as my low health warning sirens blaring.

I logged into an alt for a few minutes, then back onto the paladin. I was alive with a 15-second Sunfire DoT still on me. Never have I felt more satisfaction logging into a character.

Well, other than on any of my characters on Sargeras, who have practically zero concern over whether there are Horde in the area.

So yeah, let’s hope that WoW Token thing comes sooner rather than later. Or, you know, perhaps Blizzard could merge more servers together with the focus on actually balancing them instead of letting shit get so lopsided.

… but apparently I had a wild hair the past day or two to pick up the Bind on Account Rings that you get from doing the Shipyard quests in Warlords. I think the train of thought was that even if I spent money transferring toons off of Auchindoun, a few were at, or even below level 90. Plus, you know, the future, man.

In any case, this triggered a cascade of research and dicking around to the point that my namesake paladin is now scouring Tanaan like it’s June 2015. I even took another look at unlocking Draenor flying, but 1) fuck Blizzard for that entire fiasco, and 2) getting the 20% bonus to reputations (e.g. Trading Post Rank 3) requires Exalted with any Draenor faction… and I’m not even Honored with any of them. I suppose I could just use Medallions of the Legion without the bonus, but I don’t actually think there are enough of them on the no-pop wasteland that is Auch.

In the meantime, I’m just lurking around rare spawn sites for Shipyard equipment and doing my best Jedi Mind Trick on the passing level-capped Horde. I was only “ganked” once, by a Blood Elf hunter that saw my attempts to hearth out as too irresistible to ignore. Too bad I have the auto-bubble talent, which led me to just hearthing again, this time at double speed.

All of this is quite silly, of course. I’m pretty sure whatever time I’m spending on this is more than I’d save with +5% XP gains. At the same time, my druid is basically in passive grinding mode for Legion Pathfinder and this side project gives me something to work towards a bit more actively. I haven’t yet stuck my foot in a BG or LFR or even a Mythic dungeon.